Monthly Archives: February 2008

Daniel Hinshaw and fellow researchers reported in the Journal of the American College of Surgeons that people with more active friendship networks felt less pain and anxiety pre-surgery. As a result, they used less pain medication, felt less post-operative pain/anxiety and had faster recuperation times.

Hinshad indicated that surgeons should ask patients about levels of social support in addition to other more commonly asked questions asked of patients pre-surgery and build support for patients who are more socially isolated into their surgical plans.

Reuters Health noted that “Hinshaw, at the VA Ann Arbor Healthcare System and the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, and his colleagues had been conducting a study of massage therapy in 605 patients who underwent major surgery of the chest or abdominal area, and performed the current analysis to determine how social connectedness affected a variety of outcomes.

“The researchers gauged social connectedness by counting how many close friends and relatives study participants had, how often they saw them, and whether they attended a place of worship or other social function at least once a week. Nearly 88 percent of the study participants reported having three or more friends or relatives they saw at least once a month, while 12 percent had less than three…..Individuals with larger social networks were less likely to have anxious personalities, and they felt less pain and anxiety before surgery.”

Patients with larger social networks were 16% less likely to spend 7 or more days in the hospital.

With the exception of NY, most of the primary states witnessed dramatically more active youth participation in the primaries than in 2000 with many states doubling, tripling or even quintupling their under-30 voter turnout (as a percentage of votes cast).

– In my home state of Massachusetts, the youth vote in the 2008 primary doubled from the 2000 with an estimate that 25% voters under age 30 voted this year, compared with 11% in the 2000 primary.

– In Tennessee the youth vote quintupled from 3% in 2000 to 15% on Super Tuesday.

– In Georgia, 280,000 voters under age 30 voted on Super Tuesday, a tripling in the turnout rate to 21% from the 7% that voted in the 2000 Georgia primary.

– The youth vote tripled in Missouri, and Oklahoma and doubled in Connecticut relative to 2000.

All these states also saw big increases in the NUMBERS of youth voting, but increases in the number of youth voting vs. 2000 are less impressive since the race in 2008 is far more competitive than the primaries in 2000 that led to Al Gore’s nomination, leading more voters to vote, regardless of their age. But the increase in youth turnout (as a percentage of all votes cast) is much more impressive, since there is no inherent reason to believe that competitive races would boost young adult turnout more than other age demographics.

NY was a noticeable exception where the youth vote remained flat at 12%.

I haven’t seen the data, but Steven Stark, Boston Phoenix blogger and Real Politics contributor, asserted that in Massachusetts, youth voter turnout was up in college towns, but not elsewhere. If this was true, I’m not sure if the increases in these other states also reflect increases most heavily centered on college towns.

CIRCLE (the Center for Information & Research on Civic Learning and Engagement) released a helpful summary report of youth voting here.

That’s the glass half-full picture, but it is important to note that even with these dramatic gains in youth turnout, youth under age 30 are still participating at a fraction (sometimes less than half) of the rate of other adult Americans. For example, in OK 14% of youth under 30 voting vs. 33% overall, or 11% of youth under 30 in Arkansas vs. 25% overall turnout or 18% youth turnout in Illinois vs. 32% overall.

So despite youth turning out at higher rates, they are still having far less voice than their share of the population would signify. It’s as if you imagined this demographic speaking through a megaphone turned the wrong way so whatever they say becomes weaker not stronger. I hope the youth vote increases can continue so they can eventually have the same clout that they should and their inspiration, passion, vision, environmentalism and tolerance can translate into national leadership that accords with their values.

Note: CIRCLE indicates that these are all based on estimates. “Because there is no actual count of the number of votes cast by young people in the primaries, we can only estimate their level of participation. Our turnout estimates are based on early vote tallies reported by the media, the share of voters who are young calculated by the National Election Pool exit/entrance polls, and an estimate of the eligible voting population obtained from the Census Current Population Survey (CPS). The 2008 voter turnout rate may rise as more votes are tallied. (The early vote tally does not include such votes as absentee ballots and provisional ballots.) As a result, our 2008 turnout rate likely underestimates the level of participation in the 2008 Super Tuesday primaries.”

I’ve written earlier about the importance of social capital in changing votes and mobilizing voters (see for example this post).

One interesting technological example of “alloy social capital” (blending the silicon of the web with the flesh of face-to-face interactions) was MoveOn’s 2004 mobilization campaign for John Kerry. They worked in collaboration with the DNC and MoveOn’s e-mail list and tried to get people mobilized into talking face-to-face with uncommitted neighbors. Don Green, a skilled and careful researcher at Yale, found that it was effective in the campaign.

They analyzed over 40,000 voters across nine swing states and showed that contact with MoveOn volunteers boosted voter turnout by approximately seven percentage points (a large and statistically significant impact). Don Green and co-author Joel Middleton note that “This finding corroborates experimental findings showing the effectiveness of door-to-door canvassing but contradicts results suggesting that such mobilization is ineffective in the context of high-salience elections.”

Moreover, the impact of these contacts is larger than one would think. Much in the same way as dollars spent in the economy have a ripple effect, other research has shown a multiplier effect on friends persuaded, as they in turn persuade others.

MoveOn is now fervently working on its ’08 mobilization effort but asserts that this neighbor-to-neighbor mobilization will be at the heart of their approach this year and is actively fundraising to support this effort. MoveOn says that it was effective precisely because of the “social capital” although they don’t use that phrase. They state: It was effective “[b]ecause instead of hiring canvassers to knock on every door in a city, we asked MoveOn volunteers to talk to the folks who lived near them. Neighbors talked to neighbors. Friends talked to friends. The result: The Yale researchers found it was the most effective program ever measured in a presidential election, and one of the strongest ever in any election, 45% more effective than an average door-to-door voter turnout program.”

A New York Times Op-Ed today (Feb. 6, 2008) called “You’re Sixteen, You’re Beautiful, And You’re a Voter” argues that we should build on the growing momentum of youth interest in politics (up over the last 8 years) by letting younger voters vote. Author Anya Kamenetz notes how voters under age 29 were the first demographic to settle on the fact that Barack Obama was their man. She argues that, much like with early driver’s licenses (learning permits), we should lower the voting age to 16 if youth have taken and passed a civics course in high school much like a citizenship test. She argues that similar rules could lower the age to get credit cards, become legally married, drink alcohol, etc.

Bob Putnam and Thomas Sander have written about the growing interest of youth in politics and how this is something that needs to be stoked. (See “Sept. 11 As Civics Lesson“, Washington Post). I’m not ready to sign on to lowering age limits to everything but I agree that voting is something we should allow (for responsible youth) at a younger age and encourage. We should also couple this with more programs like KidsVotingUSA to give youth practice in exercising this important responsibility before they reach age 16.

TIME magazine’s cover story (“The Year of the Youth Vote”, Jan. 31, 2008) describes how Obama’s candidacy has been buoyed by the strength his support among under 30-year olds. This youth movement, what the article calls “Barack the Vote” propelled his victories in Iowa and South Carolina and strong finishes in Nevada and NH. Barack won Iowa among those under age 25 by a 4:1 margin. In New Hampshire, he won the youth vote 3 to 1; in Nevada, his youth totals doubled Hillary’s and in Michigan he got some 50,000 “Uncommitted” protest votes by youth under 30 since Hillary was the only name listed on the ballot.

Author David Von Drehle describes how this is ushering in a youthquake of increased voter turnout. “While enthusiastic Democrats of all ages produced a 90% increase in turnout for the first caucuses, the number of young voters was up half again as much: 135%….The youngest slice — the under-25 set, typically among the most elusive voters in all of politics — gave Obama a net gain of some 17,000 votes. He won by just under 20,000. The excitement that created — a “tidal wave,” in the words of Bill Clinton — nearly drowned the hopes of the former President’s wife. But Hillary Clinton answered with her own organizational prowess, whipping up huge numbers of working-class, female and older Democrats.”

Polling by TIME supported the attraction of youth to both politics and Obama. “Nearly three-quarters of the [TIME survey] respondents said they feel the country is headed down the wrong track, with majorities expressing worries about jobs, affordable health care and the war in Iraq. Their interest in the election exceeds their interest in celebrity news or sports — 7 of 10 said they are paying attention to the race. Obama is the only candidate in either party who is viewed favorably by a majority of young people, and he has half again as much support as his nearest competitor, Democrat or Republican.” The poll showed that 72% of 18-29 year olds are paying attention to the campaign, way above the 13% and 42% who were paying attention in 2000 and 2004.

And the article talked about how Obama courted the youth vote starting in Iowa: Barack in Iowa treated high schoolers like VIPs, meeting with them in small backstage sessions after local appearances. [Iowans can vote in the Caucuses at age 17 if they will be 18 by the general election.]

One shocker in the story was that 52% of voters found Hillary Clinton inspirational (are they watching the same programmed candidate as me?), only a shade behind Obama’s 53% and far surpassing any of the Republican candidates.

The article claims (although without much support) that Facebook is having more of an influence in 2008 than Meetup had in 2004 (with the Howard Dean campaign). It is true that Facebook has larger market share and more frequent page views, and offers the advantage that it is generally physically rooted at universities, making it stronger than social networks that are less grounded in face-to-face relationships. But it is a stretch to jump from more frequent page views and easier tools to refresh content to greater political impact without better data to support this.

Will.i.am of The Black Eyed Peas, inspired by Barack Obama’s ‘Yes We Can’ speech (given after the NH primary) set it to music and made a wonderful video, starring some of his friends, like John Legend, Scarlett Johansson, Common, Herbie Hancock, etc.

It’s a very moving video full of inspiration and hope. (Tatyana Ali and Nicole Scherzinger have amazing acapella in it.) Kareem Abdul Jabbar is even in it. See it here.

Will.i.am said that listening to Barack’s NH speech “…made me reflect on the freedoms I have, going to school where I went to school, and the people that came before Obama like Martin Luther King, presidents like Abraham Lincoln that paved the way for me to be sitting here…and making a song from Obama’s speech.”